Oxford Brookes Uni students legit queued for 24 hours to apply for houses

Sorting out your second year house is such a stress for UK uni students. Not only do you have to pull together a group of people willing to spend time with you, but you have to lowkey fight other students to the death to secure a spot in a house that’s barely legal for humans to inhabit. At Oxford Brookes Uni, it’s extra hard to secure housing. This year, students had to queue outside the letting agent for 24 hours just to book viewings and submit applications for houses.

@annabelleraynerr

Sleepover on st clements 🤭🤭#oxfordbrookes #housing

♬ original sound – KSI

The lettings agent Finders Keepers opened applications for student houses with five or more bedrooms at 9am on Tuesday 26th November. Their website explains, “Applications and requests for viewings are in person only on a first come first served basis at our Shared Letting office.

“We have staggered our property launch to prevent long wait times and we discourage queueing ahead of the launch date.”

Even so, at least 40 Brookes students queued overnight outside the office alongside St Clement’s Street to make sure that they were the first group to apply for the house they had their eye on.

@liiivvviiiiii

#brookes #oxford #unilife #wtf

♬ som original – mathy

Students literally had to camp out overnight on the street to maintain their place in the queue. They brought picnic chairs, blankets, sleeping bags and their best knitwear to endure the night. Temperatures dropped to 2°C. Some people played music in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Most Read

There’s a really good reason why Dorothy’s iconic ruby slippers aren’t red in Wicked

This Wicked press tour clip is getting utterly dragged and has become a massive meme

The journalist behind the Wicked ‘holding space’ meme has finally explained what she meant

A first year accounting and finance student called Bella Barnes, spoke about her experience to the BBC. She says she and her friends got to the lettings agent first thing on Monday morning, but were only fourth group to get there. They queued in shifts and brought each other food to keep their place in the line. She said, “When we left our toes were very cold.” Students kept checking what houses the other people were interested in. If a friend group ahead of you in the line wants the same house, then they’ll get it first, so you might as well give up on the queue.

@h444rriet

oxfordbrookes

♬ original sound – 𝓂ℴℴ𝓃𝓎

Even though the students were prepared to go to desperate lengths to get to the front of the queue, there are still 14 student houses with five or more bedrooms in Oxford available on the Finders Keepers website right now. Presumably Oxford Brookes students were just less keen to live in these ones.

The stress continues for some students – applications for houses with three or four bedrooms open next week at 9am on Tuesday 3rd December.

@annabelleraynerr

Boycott finders keepers #oxfordbrookes

♬ Apple – Charli xcx

Housing is really competitive for Oxford Brookes Uni students. The cost of living in Oxford is way higher than the UK average – it’s the seventh most expensive uni city to rent in.  The students there generally spend £763 a month on rent. So, it’s harder to find affordable accommodation. Lots of the city centre is taken up by University of Oxford buildings, so it’s tough for Brookes students to find houses in a convenient location.

Featured images via TikTok